


lux aeterna

by FirebirdSong



Category: CLAMP - Works, xxxHoLic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Fairy Tale Style, Hitsuzen, M/M, Shounen-ai, Slavic Mythology & Folklore - Freeform, The Firebird
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 17:04:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6432898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FirebirdSong/pseuds/FirebirdSong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Don't you have a wish, Shizuka?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	lux aeterna

**Author's Note:**

> This story was born from my love for xxxHolic, DouWata, Folklore, Mythology, Fairytales and The Firebird Suite by Igor Stravinsky.  
> I don't own any of these but they all own me in some way.

Shizuka had grown up in solitude. His wise grandfather, Haruka, was his only company in the shrine in between the mountains. His delicate health had been decisive in his fate: those mountains, inhabited by pure and well-meaning spirits, were the safest place for him. Haruka, the priest, had seen in his dreams clear warnings: Shizuka walked on a thin line between worlds, and there were demons trying their best to get him to disappear from all universes. Not only he needed a place to grow safe and strong, he also needed to be hidden from all evil while he was still a child. So his parents kissed him goodbye and wished him better luck in the new life in the shrine, knowing that all bonds between them had to be severed for his sake. Haruka was, from then on, his family, his friend and protector. The young boy was dressed as a girl, and no one knew his real name but his grandfather; until he could fend for himself, he was called Aiko, the “beloved child”. 

His grandfather was a seer. His first vision had been of a dark butterfly dancing around the sakura trees and then turning into a woman in a colorful kimono, smiling. She would appear in his dreams and visions, talking to him as if to an old friend; speaking of universes, of fate, of wishes. She gave mysterious hints that later made sense in facts, and he learned to appreciate and listen carefully to her words.

On the night before Shizuka was born, she poured the sake slowly and gracefully for him. “It’s a night of special importance. Many things that are and that will be are about to be changed, for better or for worse. The silence hasn’t come to this world for a long time.”

Haruka knew it was no use to ask for more. The Butterfly only spoke out of free will, and could not be coerced into telling anything she didn’t feel like. He slowly drank the sake, which tasted like knowledge and eternity, and waited. She smiled at him, and remained quiet for the rest of the dream.

Some weeks later, he came to know that a boy had been born on that night, and carried his family name. Doumeki Shizuka. _Shizuka_ , written as “quiet”. Silence. He smiled to himself.

It seemed, though, that the child was very weak, and it worried Haruka greatly. He caught himself asking for help in his prayers, and the Butterfly came to him once more – not in a dream this time, but before his own eyes. It flew from the flowers and offers for Shizuka’s survival to a small futon in the corner of the room, that Haruka was sure didn’t exist earlier that morning. He bowed deeply and respectfully to the Butterfly, that touched his fingers for a fleeting moment and then vanished. He knew what to do to save the child.

 

* * *

 

Shizuka had grown up in quiet solitude, slowly becoming stronger. His pale skin became rosy, and then tanned as he learned to love the sunlight. His fingers became curious and eager to touch the world around him; his lungs got used to the light air of the mountains. He couldn’t see the spirits that chatted friendly with his grandfather, but he respected them, and their auras touched his skin like an exquisite breeze. He learned to hold the bow, and soon he was shooting arrows that obeyed him, hitting precisely where he meant them to hit. He learned to love his grandfather like life itself, and never felt the need to explore the lands beyond the walls encircling the temple grounds. He had the very mature notion of having what he needed, and never thought of looking out for more.

Some days after his tenth anniversary, Haruka poured him tea with a different light inside his eyes. He looked more tired these days, like the years were finally taking their toll over the old priest. Shizuka felt something he couldn’t quite explain, and the silence that surrounded them was heavier. Haruka smiled sadly. “I think it is time for you to recognize your true image. You’ve grown… Shizuka-kun.”

It was the first time the boy had heard his own name, and it filled him with a sense of wonder. Names were powerful, he remembered his grandfather saying. And so, he was no more the beloved child, but the calm young boy in traditional male clothes. The colourful kimonos had been put away, and not only he looked different, but _felt_ different, in a strange way. He was still the same, but he was also new and discovering the world all over again.

A year later, his grandfather dreamed again of the Butterfly, and he knew the time had come. Shizuka was still very young, but held the fate of the world in his innocent hands. The time for his choice to be made was near.

“If you had to choose between the sky and the ground,” Haruka began, smoking as the night became dark around them “what would be your decision?”

Shizuka thought for a while. “I’ve been all my life on the ground. I’ve already known dirt and green. I guess… Ojiisan, I’d chose the sky. Because I’ve never been there. There are so many beautiful things in the sky.”

Haruka smiled, looking at the sky above as if waiting for it to come down to greet the boy. “And would you live contently with your choice?”

“I would miss the ground, I guess. But I think there would be many great things for me in the sky, and then I wouldn’t be too sad”, answered Shizuka.

Fate wasn’t still sealed, but it never waited for too long. A week later, a heartbroken Shizuka watched as his Grandfather’s body, now an empty shell, was taken care of by the shrine maidens. He could no longer listen to his gentle voice or smell the tobacco and the incense in his embrace.

For the first time in his life, he felt alone.

 

* * *

 

 

Then, one night, a fire crossed the sky. Shizuka, now a teenager, startled as he watched the bright flames fall to Earth, and his heart was quick to decide on finding out what was happening. The bow was already on his hands, and he ran fast in the fire’s direction. What he saw made his heart skip a beat.

On the ground, bleeding, helpless, surrounded by burnt feathers, lied a boy that looked slightly older than himself, with his chest pierced by an unmerciful blade.

For the first time, terror and absolute fear.

 

* * *

 

 

When those exquisite eyes opened; when Shizuka was already exhausted from all his effort on keeping the boy alive, he saw starlight. Those eyes took their time to adjust to the clear and bright day coming through the windows, and a sweet and musical sigh made Shizuka shiver.

“Who are you?” the sapphire-eyed, raven-haired boy asked, in a tiny voice.

The quiet boy didn’t know if it was safe to tell his real name. Haruka had warned him that it was dangerous to offer his name to anyone. But his tongue was quicker than his hesitation then. “I’m Shizuka. I found you eight days ago in between the sakura trees.” The words felt foreign to him; it felt like he hadn’t spoken since the beginning of the world. The sound of his own voice surprised him.

The fallen boy, oblivious to all of that, sighed once more, this time sounding a little more pained. “I’m sorry… for all the trouble, Shizuka-san.”

“What happened to you?” the young Doumeki asked, sounding blunt in his inexperienced way of talking.

“ _Mind your own business!_ ” the raven-haired hissed, and then a sharp pain crossed his chest. “I’m sorry”, he said, gritting his teeth. “I didn’t mean to sound disrespectful. You did save me after all.”

“It’s… ok.” Shizuka said, reaching for a small cup beside the futon. “Drink it. For the pain.”

“Thank you… Shizuka-san.” The boy drank the bitter liquid with a frown, but didn’t complain. “Since you gave me your name… You can call me Kimihiro. It’s not my real name, but… I’ve actually forgotten my real name, so this is as good as any other.”

“Kimihiro-chan”, said Shizuka, tasting the name on his tongue.  The other boy made a fuss.

“I’m not a girl!”

Shizuka gestured with his head to Kimihiro’s body, naked under the covers. “I could tell.”

The other boy blushed furiously, what made Shizuka smile to himself. If he could blush like that, he was surely healing fast.

“What a pervert! I’m almost wishing you had left me to die.” Kimihiro hissed again, like an angry cat. Shizuka put his fingers in his ears.

“You’re too loud.”

Kimihiro only glared at him this time, looking pained again. Shizuka put a hand tentatively over the other boy’s chest, holding him down against the futon.

“Rest. You’re still healing”, he said, as Kimihiro blushed once more. “And don’t worry. You’re safe here.”

That was something the fallen boy couldn’t disagree if he tried.

 

* * *

 

 

Kimihiro healed fast, and soon he was pacing restlessly around the temple, speaking to himself. Shizuka was always near, trying to make sense of the mysterious (and quite loud) boy.

“I can’t believe you live in a place like this! You’re so rude! One could think you’d be different growing up on sacred ground!” he ranted while looking for something he could cook.

“How different?” Shizuka asked, amused at the other boy’s weirdness. He had never met anyone like him – not that he had met many people anyway. Still he was sure that Kimihiro was the unusual one, not himself.

“I don’t know! Different! Don’t you have any imagination? Figure it out for yourself! I don’t have to explain everything to you!” Kimihiro seemed to have immediately picked a grudge against him, even if Shizuka had saved him and spent nights and days taking care of the boy. Doumeki didn’t understand, and it made him feel a little weird inside – but he found it amusing anyway. Kimihiro was light touching a prism – and every wavelength fascinated the lonely Shizuka. Suddenly, it was all changing – irreversibly, inexorably.

“ _Hitsuzen_ ”, his ojiisan would say, smiling knowingly to himself.

The food, for instance. Shizuka had been, to an extent, picky about food. But Kimihiro’s cooking was… otherworldly. It seemed to feed both his body and his soul, in a way he never experienced. Soon enough he had decided he couldn’t live without it anymore. “Are you going to prepare Sukiyaki?”

“STOP ORDERING ME AROUND! I’LL COOK WHATEVER I FEEL LIKE, YOU UNGRATEFUL GLUTTON!”

They ended up having sukiyaki for dinner.

 

* * *

 

 

“What happened on the night you fell?”

Kimihiro startled, taking his hand to his chest, as if feeling the blade piercing through his skin again. Have his memories always been this vivid? He couldn’t recall. It was like becoming sensitive again to the world around him. Shizuka’s questions and the long silences that followed had the ability to bring any memory to the very surface of his skin.

“I was careless. Someone saw me and… grabbed the opportunity.” He sounded almost ashamed of himself. Shizuka could tell it was uncomfortable for the other to talk about it, still he pushed a little bit more.

“Care to explain?”

“Stop interrogating me! I didn’t give you any right to do so, blank face!” And with that, the blue-eyed boy ran as fast as he could, away from the shrine and its clueless inhabitant.

 

* * *

 

 

 Kimihiro seemed to be growing more and more restless with time. Shizuka sometimes thought he saw sparks flying from the other teenager when he ranted, and on the few times their skins accidentally touched, the other boy’s skin felt inhumanly hot.

One day, the blue-eyed boy threw himself on the ground, lying beneath a tree, beside Doumeki. “Don’t you have a wish, Shizuka?” He asked, sighing loudly as if giving up on something.  

The question was very unexpected. Shizuka had never thought about wishes. He had what he had, and what he didn’t have didn’t make a difference to him. He couldn’t miss what he never knew. Kimihiro had already considered the conversation to be a one-way road, as it usually seemed to happen those days, when the archer answered. “I don’t know. What kind of wish?”

“Oh, _any kind of wish._ ” It could be his mind playing tricks, but Shizuka could swear Kimihiro’s voice had changed to a deeper, nearly seductive tone. “Being rich, finding your soul mate, becoming stronger, seeing someone you haven’t seen in a long time… I can tell you have a wish. But I can’t tell what it is.” The boy took a deep breath. “I can make your wish come true, you know. You saved my life. I have the ability to concede you your heart’s desire.”

“How?” Shizuka asked, in his usual calm tone, but feeling really curious.

“You must have seen me falling. You must know what I am.” At Shizuka’s blank look, Kimihiro seemed to hesitate. “A firebird. Haven’t you ever heard about that?”

The archer nodded negatively. Kimihiro looked puzzled.

“This is really... unusual. For centuries, people hunted me, asking for wishes. Sometimes I could sense a really kind soul with a wish and came down on my own will. But in this case… You see, I can’t leave until I make your wish come true. I can feel your wish, _right here_.” The mysterious boy touched his fingertips to Shizuka’s chest, briefly. “But it is the first time I know nothing about it. You’ll have to tell me.”

Shizuka found himself not wanting to tell anything. If it meant that Kimihiro would leave… He didn’t even know what that wish was about! He didn’t need it. He would make his own wished come true, if necessary. So he got up, making the first of the important choices his grandfather had seen in dreams.

“I don’t have a wish.”

His footsteps were slow, but he felt like running away. Only, this time, it was a strange will: to run from Kimihiro and his words and at the same time keep him as close as possible, so he could never leave.

 

* * *

 

 

After a week asking the same question and not getting any near of a proper answer from Doumeki, the Firebird got angry. Kimihiro was taken by flames and shapeshifted to his animal form, flying away from the shrine and from the stoic annoying boy. But he couldn’t stay far for too long. His magic made it impossible to do so.

Also, a small wish of his own started to grow silently inside his heart.

He had been warned about that too – about the firebird’s wish. The Butterfly lady, also known as the Mistress of Fate, had told him about it. About how every now and then a firebird got a wish of his own, and how it could change everything. Kimihiro was terrified. He had always been careful, always crushing down his own wishes before they could hatch; but this one seemed unbreakable. And all it took was a careless moment in a crisis! It was a disaster. He hid that wish as well as he could from himself, but his body knew it already, and it seemed to be controlling his attitudes.

It was clear to him that his wish had everything to do with Shizuka, and that terrified him the most.

 

* * *

 

 

Every time Kimihiro turned into his flamed self, Shizuka couldn’t help but stare in awe at the magical boy.

It was only natural, he supposed, that feeling of wonder facing a kind of beauty he couldn’t quite comprehend. It was surely also natural and expected the desire to touch the beautiful skin, the dark hair, the soft-looking lips. He felt electrified every time they touched, less and less accidentally with time. To watch the magnificent bird fly away was also beautiful – but it filled Shizuka with dread and sorrow, instead of the warm feeling that took over him when Kimihiro was on the ground. It made him want to fly…

But he still didn’t have a wish. He couldn’t think of anything that would make him happier than he felt already… Except, maybe…

And then, a wish grew inside Shizuka, revealing itself in all its glory. The archer held his breath, certain that Kimihiro had noticed and that it was all over; that somehow his wish couldn’t become reality because it was impossible, and that the boy would fly away, free from any responsibility with his saviour.

The blue-eyed boy went on talking to himself, though, cutting vegetables, seeming oblivious to the moment Shizuka understood everything. The veil that hid the truth from his own eyes had disappeared. And then he made his second choice.

And it pained him deeply.

 

* * *

 

 

“Do you really hate me so much?” Doumeki asked, not looking at the blue-eyed boy beside him, but at the stars above him.

Kimihiro stopped his nonsense ranting. He never thought his words were taken seriously by the archer, and perhaps that was the reason he didn’t think too much about them. After an entire year living at the ground, in the shrine, in his human form, he found himself surprisingly used to it. The words he said to Shizuka meant nothing, and helped him deny the wish growing inside of himself, its truth becoming more and more visible even if he didn’t want to acknowledge.

“I… I don’t hate you.” Kimihiro said, softly, looking away.

“Then why do you keep saying so?” The archer’s face wasn’t so unreadable to Kimihiro anymore. If the blue-eyed boy looked at him, he would see that it bothered Shizuka in a way he wasn’t used to.

“I don’t know.” _I don’t want to know_.

Silence felt more tangible than ever, until Shizuka spoke again, like the archer was the very master of silence, powerful in his own way. The words he said then had an impact much greater than Kimihiro was comfortable to admit even to himself.

“If you ever feel like leaving for good, just ask for it. You shouldn’t be caged against your will.”

 

* * *

 

 

It looked like a dance. The spirits observed and whispered to themselves what the boys couldn’t say to one another. Kimihiro and Shizuka talked in quiet gestures, heavy with meaning, and the silence was loud against their ears. Once in a while, they told each other stories. Kimihiro spoke of a world that Shizuka couldn’t see; the archer spoke of a life the Firebird couldn’t understand. The Butterfly lady and Doumeki Haruka were constantly mentioned, since those were the strongest bonds the boys had ever had.

Kimihiro noticed the veiled pain behind Shizuka’s eyes when Haruka was mentioned. He could feel the loneliness surrounding the archer more strongly every time they talked about the priest, like the air was suddenly colder and more difficult for Shizuka to breathe it in. Haruka started visiting the Firebird in his dreams – looking just like his grandson, but smiling in a way Kimihiro had never saw in that now familiar face before. Unlike the younger Doumeki, the priest spoke in riddles, and seemed very interested in what Kimihiro had to say. The blue-eyed boy gradually confided his fears and doubts to the deceased seer, who always ended up telling him something about his grandson, making things clearer and easier to understand.

The Firebird was still afraid of the Wish, but it didn’t look as terrifying as it did four years before when he first felt it. Kimihiro knew that it wouldn’t take long for him to speak it aloud and make it happen, and he was still unsure about accepting that fate.  

It was a great burden to be the last of his kind, but it was a greater burden to have everything he wished for right before his eyes.

 

* * *

 

 

“I could bring Haruka back to life, if you asked me”, the Firebird said through Kimihiro’s lips.

Shizuka lowered the bow, feeling his chest tightening at the thought of having his Grandfather there, by his side, breathing, laughing, _living_. It seemed to take over him completely, like it wasn’t madness at all, like it was something he could really wish for.

For that moment, the pain was unbearable, like it had been when he was just a child losing his most precious relationship to something more powerful than he could really understand.

But he had already chosen his path without even knowing. His fate was already irreversibly changed.

“That is not my wish”, Shizuka said quietly.

 _I wish for the sky_.

 

* * *

 

 

Kimihiro knew the moment he woke up.

As he made his way to the young man wearing the dark blue kimono, he could feel his tongue tingling with the will to tell it to the world.

But there was one last wish he needed to concede.

 

* * *

 

 

Shizuka let the broom fall as soon as the beautiful and elegant arms reached for his shoulders.

The unexpected embrace seemed to stop time, to erase all reality until there was nothing but the archer and firebird boy.

“Tell me your wish, Shizuka. This is your last chance to do so. I won’t be able to make it come true anymore.”

His heart was as fast as a hummingbird’s. The archer was taken over by euphoria – and by fear. What did Kimihiro mean? Was he leaving? Did Shizuka do something wrong? His eyes closed as he put his own arms around the other’s waist, holding him closer, tightly. He hadn’t been held so intimately for so long – and it could be the last time.

And then, Doumeki Shizuka made his final choice.

“Don’t leave me. Don’t go away. I want you near. I’ll to protect you from the hunters. I want you with me – forever.”

Kimihiro could feel the changes already – the strings of fate unfurling around them and yielding power – and the happiness he never experienced was all he could be.  

“When a Firebird have a wish”, he began, feeling light-headed as the universe itself seemed to be transforming, “the wish-granter inside of it dies. It can no longer play with fate, life or death.”

He felt himself getting weaker as magic was drained from him, and Shizuka was the only thing keeping him steady right then.

“I had a wish growing and I couldn’t ignore it any longer. I can’t fight against it, I can’t pretend it isn’t part of my own being. I wanted to grant your wish before I lost all my ability to do so, Shizuka… So you need to be really careful with what you wish for. It could change… everything” Kimihiro chuckled weakly, hearing the Butterfly lady’s voice as he spoke.

The archer would be afraid if it was still possible – he couldn’t see what his grandfather saw, couldn’t know what the Firebird knew, and the world was so much greater than he imagined it to be. But nothing could stop him from being filled by that magnificent truth. It was his fate – and it was obeying his own will. He could feel his wish coming true.

“What do you wish for, Kimihiro?” Shizuka asked, breathlessly – and it sounded like birds singing loudly in a Summer morning.

The blue-eyed boy smiled. “I wish… Gods, I wish for so many things right now. But they are all the same wish, in the end.” He touched his lips to Shizuka’s, softly. “My wish is your wish’s perfect match. I can’t live like I did all these years anymore. I can’t be alone again, because with you… You, so irritatingly quiet and blunt and still so, so very _gentle_ with your words, your hands, your eyes _._ You. I want you with me for as many years as I live. I’ll give up my power and share my lifetime with you. I’ll give up the sky if necessary, because now I understand all those wishes about love.”

Those words seemed to envelop them in flames and light, surrounding them in the purest energy and power that was going back to where it belonged – to the skies. All that was left there was a creature who lost its heart to Silence, and accepted its fate gladly as the world changed its course.

 

* * *

 

 

Shizuka was never alone these days.

He wasn’t alone when he woke up with his Beloved in his arms, in places and dimensions he never heard of. He wasn’t alone when they jumped from dream to dream, from each reality to its counterpart. Even when Kimihiro missed the sky and couldn’t help spreading his red wings, flying away from the ground Shizuka couldn’t leave – on those moments, he would concentrate on his promise, on that bond so precious to him. He would no longer be a man, but a large wolf, running restlessly through the land, protecting the bright bird from everything that could hurt it. Hunters feared his sharp teeth. Bad spirits seeking for flesh touched by magic would fade away forever beneath his cold glare.

He couldn’t fly, but he could touch the sky on Kimihiro’s hands – he could carry its most beloved star safely when it tired, and it would caress his fur in silent adoration. He couldn’t take away the pain from the other’s heart when wishes were needed, when the world was made of unmerciful sadness and there was nothing the Firebird could do – but he could soothe it with his fingers. He could sing soft words of love and give a little more of himself every day to Kimihiro without haste. If his lover was infinity in light and dark, Shizuka was the deep waters of an immeasurable ocean. He lived for Kimihiro, and love made him eternal.

His heart burned in golden flames. It was only inevitable.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it :D


End file.
